Baking Sunday

My adventures today began with a new book I picked up Saturday at Potter's House Thrift store. It's called Mi$erly Moms and was 50 cents, including 11 chapters of helpful hints on how to save money and a large section dedicated to recipes and grocery shopping. Since Jonathan and I sat down with our budget last week to evaluate where our monthly money is going and a large chunk of it is food I decided this would be worth the 50 cent investment. It's a super quick read if you ever come across it- and some good ideas!

So first on the agenda was homemade granola. Since she pointed out that the average box of cereal is $3.50-4.00 it adds up pretty quickly for what can be one of the most affordable meals of the day. So there were a few homemade recipes to avoid the brand name cereal boxes- make your own pancakes- and syrup (I bought maple extract to try this later in the month!) and make your own granola. I haven't had it with milk yet, but it smelled delicious making it and tasted really great fresh out of the oven. For those interested- here is the recipe:

Nonfat Granola

5 cups quick oats

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup concentrated apple juice

1/2 cup dry milk

1/3 cup honey

2 tb. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup dried fruit (I used raisins)

Mix sugar, juice, dry milk and honey in saucepan, and heat until sugar dissolves. Combine other dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Pour sugar mixture slowly over dry mixture and blend well. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

After my fresh granola came out of the oven I used one of the book's snack recipes for Chewy Granola bars. I think my grama's are better but I enjoyed trying this one out and it is very simple. Because I used the hot- out- of- the- oven granola, my chocolate chips melted a bit more and they look more like chocolate no-bake cookies.

Chewy Granola Bars

1- 1/2 cup any granola

1/4 cup honey

1/8 cup chopped peanuts, other nuts, or chocolate chips

1 egg

Combine well and press into a greased 8x8 baking pan, about 1/2 inch thik. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Slice into bars after they cool.

Next up in the oven came the scones! We have some blueberries on hand so I threw those into them and they turned out smashing. I've always been intimidated by scones for some reason, they've always appeared complicated to me, but after attempting them, they are totally not! You roll the dough into a circle and then cut 6 slices like a pizza. This recipe came from my trusty red and white check BHG cookbook.

Scones

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/desserts/scones/

After making the first three treats I was exhausted from standing- so Jonathan stepped in and cleaned up my mess in exchange for taste testing everything fresh out of the oven. Then came dinner time and I had seen a recipe earlier in the week from the new food network show Ten Dollar Dinners. I was confused because the recipe didn't have a picture- which is why I'm including one for you here of our meal. There is no actual sauce for this pasta dish- but you toss the italian sausage and veggies with the pasta before serving and all of the flavors just cover it.

Sausage and Roasted Vegetable Penne

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/sausage-and-roasted-vegetable-penne-recipe/index.html

(We used whole wheat linguine because it's what we had in and no mushrooms because we aren't fans. Everything else we mostly stuck to the recipe posted online)

Hope you have a creative week in the kitchen! If you have tried a new recipe lately feel free to share.